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Sessions and Gigs The only gigs in August were three ceilidhs in Stirling, Dunning and Perth. Only one was suitable for inexperienced players but the ceilidh band did us proud again. Fridays at the hall are your best chance of getting up to speed with ceilidh tunes if you want to. Just let us know. Some of you may have noticed that we are a bit short of tutors on Friday evenings so we will be introducing a new approach soon. Rather than giving all the details here we'll discuss it at at the hall first. Sorry, there isn't much here - I'll try and add some more later in September if I get the time. Keep your eye on the gigs and sessions pages. Newsletter for members. Go to the Members' Page and follow the link. Lottery
MUSIC BOOK TWO. Will be printed in early October. It contains 190 tunes, 24 dances, many pages of help and totals nearly 150 pages over all. CD recording . Saturday 15th September - we need all the Ne're-do-wells. Andrew is organising this (or at least he intends to.) IT happened! OLD NEWS. You will find all previous web news details by visiting the old news page. FIDDLES. We are still wanting to get back any fiddles that you no longer need. Please bring them to the hall on a Friday or call (see contact page) and we can arrange to collect them. Thanks. |
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When did you last
visit the jokes page? Do you know where it is? No! Try the
Links page. You may notice that we have not updated the jokes
recently - if you have one we can include then email it to us.
Sessions and Gigs As usual after the summer the hall sessions have become busy again. Its good to see everyone there. We have several groups learning new tunes and the collective repertoire is being extended week by week. September was a good month for gigs. We did three ceilidhs, including one where some new ceilidh band players came and joined in. The other two gigs were for residential homes and if truth be told, and we are big on honesty and truth as you know, we didn't get as many players as we would have liked. Those that come did an excellent job and played really well. So once again thanks to them. The fiddle group survives because of its gigs, and gigs are really one of the main things that we do. It occurs to me at least that some members are not very familiar with why we do gigs, what happens when we get there and what they may be expected to do. So we'll have a chat about this at the hall on Friday. Here is a link on the members' page to an article on why we play gigs. You can also reach it from the members' newsletter link on the member's page. Lottery Tune workshop - see below
MUSIC BOOK TWO. Is ready for printing. It contains 200+ tunes, 24 dances, many pages of help and totals nearly 150 pages over all. CD recording . Last few things to do then we can get this off to a professional for mixing and mastering. OLD NEWS. You will find all previous web news details by visiting the old news page. FIDDLES. We are still wanting to get back any fiddles that you no longer need. Please bring them to the hall on a Friday or call (see contact page) and we can arrange to collect them. Thanks. This news page officially invites your contributions. Stories and other things can be included. These can be sent by email or written on old-fashioned paper. This is your web site and my life would be greatly enhanced by your contributions. |
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Stop press. Change of Ceilidh
venue. See green box.
Lost Property. A small pink and green hat with matching gloves was left behind after the anniversary ceilidh. Will fit a very small person. If you know who they belong to or if they are yours please email or call (see contact us page) or come to the Friday session. Owner is found. Sessions and Gigs There are a number of groups learning tunes on Fridays at the moment, mainly from Music Book One. A few beginners are doing Twinkle Twinkle, Old Macdonald and the other ones in colour. At the other end of the spectrum (and of the book) we are doing The Flowers of Edinburgh and The Lass of Patie's Mill. In between we have people at most stages so everyone ought to be able to find some company when learning. We are really grateful to the those who keep the "teaching" going. It isn't easy to help other people but many BFG members of all ages are now helping out and as a result we are seeing everyone make progress. We didn't do any "everyone" gigs in October, just a couple of ceilidhs. Both were for BFG members. Andrew B and Glen both reached 50 (years not IQ) and there was a great ceilidh in the Finlayson Hall. The following week Andrew L and Jazzy had their 18th and 16th birthday ceilidh in Blackford. Another good night, although the average age of the dancers was just slightly lower. In Glen's absence Andrew B stood in as soundman - no one died, and nothing blew up! These two gigs really sum up so much about what BFG is about. We have our own band, we can do events locally for ourselves and invite lots of people to enjoy it. Last month I had a bit of go at you about "everyone" gigs and the problem that many of you are not coming. I realise that in part that is because we have new members who simply don't know how the system works. Please read this article at this link why we play gigs. One Friday soon we'll have a blether about gigs and what we do at them. ANNUAL CEILIDH Don't forget to come and play and dance at the annual ceilidh on Saturday 10th November. Change of venue. See green box above for details. Its been done! If you missed it then you missed a good night. We hope no one went to the Aytoun Hall. The change of venue was forced on us by an administrative blunder involving the authorities and others, but not us. There was a notice there at the Aytoun hall but it did look closed (which it was.) Book Two. Now called The BFG Big Ceilidh Book. It is ready and printed. Over the months it became a bigger and bigger project but at last it is over. Copies will be available to members on Fridays. We are not aware of any other book which covers music, dance instructions, notes on running ceilidhs and on playing. It should be the reference source for BFG for many years to come. The first 25 copies have been distributed to members. A further 15 copies will be sent to some of the tune writers who gave us permission to use their tunes. The book remains free to members at the moment, but they have to buy one of our excellent BFG Pens (£6). Non-members with links to BFG may be able to buy the book but it will be £20 and only very limited numbers are available other than to members. Many of you have already said you are interested in helping to record the tunes so that others can learn to play them by ear. We'll begin hat process in a few weeks time. Tune writing workshop. Many thanks to Marie Fielding who ran the workshop for us and to Isobel who organised it all. Twelve of us attended. We spent our time bouncing fish on a large sheet of Lycra, reciting simple rhymes about vegetables and making horrible noises for the fun of it. And somehow all this resulted in a selection of very good tunes being written as well. We will definitely do something similar again so that more members can have a go. A short performance of our music may be arranged for the hall one Friday. Remember not to lose your tune. We will get all the workshop people together on Friday 7th December to record or write out their tunes. The Big Ceilidh Book and the Tune Writing Workshop are parts of the project carried out with support from the Lottery through Awards for All.  CD recording No progress since last month. The book took priority. FIDDLES. Thanks for the fiddles returned to us. We have bought a few new ones too. PLease continue to return any fiddles that you no longer need as they are under increasing demand. Please bring them to the hall on a Friday or call (see contact page) and we can arrange to collect them. OLD NEWS. You will find all previous web news details by visiting the old news page. This news page officially invites your contributions. Stories and other things can be included. These can be sent by email or written on old-fashioned paper. This is your web site and my life would be greatly enhanced by your contributions. (To date none have been received - not sure what that means.) |
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New stock of fiddle/guitar tuners for sale at £10 each. (Retail at about £19). Only a few available. 
 Happy Christmas to BFG members
and friends and to visitors to our web pages.
Sessions
and GigsMembers' Survey 2007. Use link on Members' Page Well here we are, the nights have fairly drawn in and the season of goodwill is nearly upon us. At BFG we will continue to be miserable if we want to be. But we are not, we are happy as the hall is as busy as ever on Fridays and the quality of the music is on the up and up. Learning is going to be a bit more systematic for a while because we need to get everyone to the point that they have a good number of tunes for "everyone" gigs and so that others are getting a good ceilidh selection together. We'll be putting together a "recommended learning list" soon. Some of this will be based on Book One and some on the new Big Ceilidh Book. Once again we are really grateful to our "teachers" who do so well demonstrating the tunes for others. What we now need is for them and anyone else to learn and record a tune or set from the new book so we can put a learning CD together. More of that later. November was a crazy month for ceilidhs. Six in all, including 3 fund-raisers, one birthday party, one school event and of course our own 11th Anniversary Ceilidh. We had a wide spread of players come for these which is great. The more of us that can hold a ceilidh together the better. Feedback please!!!!! Over the last two months we have asked about "everyone" gigs and the problem that many of you don't come. We really do need to know what gigs will suit you. Please read the we play gigs page. We'll try putting a questionnaire here too. and as promised.one Friday soon we'll have a blether about gigs and what we do at them. ANNUAL CEILIDH Despite the mix up over venues we had a fantastic turnout and a great ceilidh. The Finlayson hall was perfect and the evening was a great success. The playing was brilliant and so many of you joined in which is just what we want to happen. The dancing was good too and as ever the feedback has been terrific. We'll do it again next year!
Big Ceilidh Book (Music Book Two). The first of our lottery projects that has now been completed. The book has already started to sell well in the Group. Perhaps I should correct that. As you know we have actually been giving the book away to members who buy on of our deluxe pens. We can make a limited number of books available outside the group and we will charge a reasonable price for them. The book is fairly unique and it represents many hundreds of hours of work from Andrew and several others. It seems only fair to recover some of the costs we have incurred over and above the lottery grant. Next step is to record all the tunes in the book, played slowly for others to learn from. All of you can help with this. We will begin recording them soon so if there is one you already know or are prepared to learn just tell us. We'll have a sheet at the hall so you can sign up for a tune.. Tune writing follow up. Next step. Friday 7th December we'll try to pull together all the tunes we composed and make sure that they are recorded and written out. If you were at the workshop please try to come to this session. We will help to complete all the tunes and in January we'll play them to the others. We will do another tune writing session in January / February and finish the project. The Big Ceilidh Book and the Tune Writing Workshop are parts of the project carried out with support from the Lottery through Awards for All. CD recording No progress since last month. The book took priority. FIDDLES. Thanks for the fiddles returned to us. We have bought a few new ones too. Please continue to return any fiddles that you no longer need as they are under increasing demand. Please bring them to the hall on a Friday or call (see contact page) and we can arrange to collect them. OLD NEWS. You will find all previous web news details by visiting the old news page. This news page officially invites your contributions. Stories and other things can be included. These can be sent by email or written on old-fashioned paper. This is your web site and my life would be greatly enhanced by your contributions. (To date none have been received - not sure what that means.) |